Darren and Jo on the Road

Summertime is here already in Hanoi. For me and Jo, summer brings many things.

For a start, our school doubles the number of hours teaching kids, so everything gets really manic for about 10 weeks with extra teachers, extra hours and more workload.

Coupled with that, the temperatures soar. Yesterday it got to 39 C (102 F), but the “feels like” factor (due to humidity) was 51 C (124 F).

And because of the extra demand when everyone switches on the aircon in desperation, the system is given rests (or maybe overloads…) and you get the powercuts with periods of no power (yes, no aircon) in the day and, worse, night.

And then you just have to hope for a thunderstorm to bring the nighttime temperature back down to a manageable 28 C (82 F)…

The burgers at Ete Resto Cafe are well-known and well-reknowned in Hanoi. And, wonderful to say, they also have a Veggie version which is pretty fantastic.

Is it the nice burger? Or the sesame bun? Or the side salad with a mustard vinagrette? Or the chunky fries? Or the accompanying garlic mayo. Could be….!

They even have three sizes: medium (full to bursting), large (full to feeling ill) and the new extra large (Mr Creosote).

Couldn’t even take a photo without eating some first…

The last time we were in Hoi An – about 6 years ago! – we were in the middle of a curry crawl to visit all the “Omar Khayyam” curry houses in Vietnam. Imagine our shock when we arrived at Omar’s this time and there he was – gone! But in his place, a most worthy successor: The Shree Ganesh, Hoi An

We made our order, still in shock, but when the food arrived everything changed for the better. First, the poppadums and onion bhajis. A good start. Crispy and tasty. The the main courses. My Malai Kofta had a beautifully creamy and smoky sauce. Jo had the eggplant curry. We shared some tandoori veggies.

The manager was very friendly and I would say it’s probably the best curry I’ve had in Vietnam. Would we go back? Well, yes – we went back the next day! High praise indeed.

It was wintertime in Hanoi.
It was cold – Ok, still 13 C, but feels freezing compared to the rest of the year.
It was damp – a kind of dust rain hangs in the air on most days.
It was empty – everyone goes back to their home village for New Year.
It was time to get out.

Having missed the cheap flights abroad, we decided to stay in Vietnam and go to Hoi An. Once the most important port in South East Asia, Hoi An is now preserved as a World Heritage Site. Most importantly, it was 10 degrees warmer than Hanoi.

Our hotel gave us a bungalow at the riverside, free breakfast, free wifi and was just a 5 minute walk from the centre. And that was the problem. After a day of walking, I missed having a motorbike. Fortunately, they were easy to hire. So off we whizzed to the beach, to Danang, to Tam Ky and around town. Joanne even took her tentative first go at driving. I was very pleased when, after only her second lesson, she drove me as a passenger for about 5 km!

All too soon, our week in Hoi An was over. And it was back to the winter in Hanoi.
See Hoi An here…

Heard of Ewan MacColl?
British folksinger and songwriter?
Maybe his daughter, Kirsty?
I must admit that I didn’t realise that his song about Salford – “Dirty Old Town” (yes, that song) was about Salford, and not Dublin…
But this Song from the Road shows his socialist leanings. We first heard it in an Irish bar in Ho Chi Minh City three years ago. It’s difficult to resist singing this catchy ditty on a chilly spring day in Hanoi: “The Ballad of Ho Chi Minh”.
We particularly like the way that “Ho” is rhymed with “hoe”.
All together – “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh! Ho!”

To help get us in the mood for Tet – Vietnamese New Year, and to see a bit more of Hanoi, our friend Jenn suggested that we take up the challenge of the “MaraTet” – a kind of photo marathon for Tet.

We thought it was a great idea. Rush around the city in 10 hours, taking photos of the 13 items on the list. That was until we saw the list on MaraTet morning. How were we going to find a dog’s tail in a swimming pool? How could we translate the poem “Ong Do” and what the hell did it mean anyway? We sat and contemplated the list downheartedly over breakfast at the Gecko cafe.

“Phone a friend?” Jo suggested. I called Huong, the scheduler at my school, and we got our first clues.

“The Kitchen Gods taking their vehicle to the skies at the moment they depart from Hanoi” apparently meant that everyone and their children would be chucking carp into any available lake or river that morning – the 23rd day of the lunar month. We’d seen live goldfish for sale for weeks beforehand, but hadn’t realised that this was the chosen method of transport for the spirits that oversee every household in Vietnam when they go off to the heavens to make their yearly report. Sure enough, down at Hoan Kiem Lake we got our first picture.

And then the second, as we got into someone’s wedding photo with them. We came across the next item unexpectedly when “The most fashionable Honda Wave in Hanoi?!”, done up in leopard skin, overtook us. We gave chase up Kim Ma Street on our less-fashionable, mud-splattered Honda Wave to catch them and take the photo.

Then, the “Ong Do” turned out to be an old scholar who does calligraphy. Every Vietnamese person we met could recite the poem by heart, so we soon got a translation. We found our target at the Temple of Literature – again on the advice of our Vietnamese friends.

Halfway through the list, and halfway through the day, we were flagging. We went home to take stock, do some internet research and have a rest.

Then, not quite refreshed, we hit the road again. The banks of the red river. A picture of a picture on a bus for Hanoi in 2022. Another chase as we follow another motorbike with four huge papier-mâché horses on the back of it. Then we had to get more cunning.

Having purchased a toy dog for 1 pound from the local shop, we visited the poshest hotel in town. Jo brazenly walked straight into the fitness centre and asked if we could take a look around. “You do have a swimming pool?” she checked. As she distracted the staff, I positioned the toy dog and got the snap.

Next, it should be quite simple to sneak in and take a picture of “a hotel door with the number 23 on it” – (the 23rd day of the lunar month, remember). Except you needed a key card to get to the guest area… The receptionist seemed quite excited as I explained the reason and charmingly asked for her help. I explained how any room with 23 would do and that we could hide the other numbers. “Follow me!” she said, and ran off to the lifts like a Vietnamese Annika Rice. Outside the door to room 1023, she slapped the key card over the offending first two digits. Photo snapped!

The last picture of the day was “a real living tiger in Hanoi”. The bar staff at Derry’s Irish Bar took the photo of us drinking a real living Tiger… beer… And then it was off to the Ete Bar to hand in the photos and take a look at everyone else’s collections.

And would you believe that out of 40 teams we came… a respectable second place.

See all the Maratet items here…

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!
Happy New Year from Vietnam!

Vietnamese New Year, or Tet, falls on the last day of the lunar year – this year, that’s 14th February. In Vietnam, new year isn’t just new year. It’s your birthday (everyone gets a year older), Christmas (a family occasion when gifts and lucky money are given) and new year (this one being the Year of the Tiger).

This is our second experience of Tet, so we were used to the “Tet trees” and “Tet branches” (every household gets a kumquat tree and/or peach blossom branch to decorate their house). Before Tet, everyone burns money (usually fake dollars) for luck and the shops become frantic (there is a saying that you don’t celebrate Tet, you eat it – like Christmas, really). The first day is a family day, the next few days, everyone gets on the family motorbike and visits friends. The celebrations go on for a week after, and the preparations start months before. After Tet, you have to burn your Tet decorations. We also noticed this year that cradled on the motorbike bearing its siblings and parents the baby is dressed in a tiger baby-grow.

And, seeing as we have more than a week off from work, we’re going to celebrate too. If only they did tiger baby-grows in my size.

Back in May, India had been quite a shock, with the noise, the heat, the sheer number of people. We needed some therapy to get over it all. And where better than Singapore?

First, the retail therapy. In the four years since we’d left the UK, we hadn’t really done any clothes shopping. To give you an idea of the scale of the shopping available in this island state, there are EIGHT Marks and Spencers stores here. We also really needed a new computer – it seems India was too much for our old laptop as well.
Next, some food therapy, and specifically non-spicy food. Not that all food in India was spicy, or that we didn’t enjoy it, or that there wasn’t a Pizza Hut, we just wanted something else.

Then a bit of tourism therapy. With its Second World War history, we were bound to find something of interest to us. We went to see the command centre of British forces during the war before Singapore fell, and a quick tour of Changi prison where many British and Singaporeans were imprisoned.

Finally, a visit to Raffles Hotel, the birthplace of the Singapore Sling for some cocktail therapy. Well, except I don’t like gin. So Jo had a Sling and I had the most expensive Tiger beer I’ve ever drunk. Still, the peanuts were free, and I did feel better after throwing the shells on the floor – which, I should add, was not me being spiteful, but a tradition at Raffles.

More pictures of Singapore here…

We’re rather pleased with ourselves. We’ve been in Hanoi for less than a week, but we’ve managed to find a house and move in. Here’s a quick video tour. Unfortunately, the owner wants to replace the pond with a patio, but that should mean less mosquitoes… And this time I didn’t crash on the way and have all my fingers intact…